TRL's effect on music charts, and the shifting tides of music in general, may have seemed apparent and obvious - basically how a song performed on TRL translated into chart success.
Wrong. Here are some astounding facts I found in my spare time.
* Despite the whole boy band craze that lasted from 1998-2001 (?), only one song by either the Backstreet Boys or *NSYNC (or any of the B-list boybands, for that matter) was able to reach the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100: *NSYNC's "It's Gonna Be Me" during the summer of 2000, and only for one week. What's even more surprising is that that particular song isn't among the most recognizable from either of them ("I Want It That Way"; "Larger Than Life"; "Bye Bye Bye"; "This I Promise You").
* blink-182, the now (unfortunately) defunct pop-punk band that would later inspire bands like Good Charlotte, New Found Glory and Simple Plan (<---wack) and who can possibly be held responsible for Green Day's comeback (yeah, I said it
), only had
4, count 'em, four, Billboard Hot 100 songs to their name: "What's My Age Again", "All The Small Things", "The Rock Show" and "I Miss You". Even more depressing than the band's break up is the difference in peak positions from their biggest hit ("All The Small Things", which peaked at #6) to their next biggest hit ("I Miss You" peaked at a surprisingly low #44
).
* KoRn's biggest hit "Freak On A Leash" never even charted on the Hot 100 until this week (
) when the "unplugged" acoustic version of the song debuted at #89. The band's biggest BB Hot 100 song to date is 2002's "Here to Stay" which peaked at #72.
I'll post some more later on.
